How close are we to the Rapture? Pretty damn close!

May 17, 2014 • 12:25 pm

At first I thought this was a joke, but as is so often true with religious websites, I don’t think it is. It’s a site called The Rapture Index, and is meant to tell us how close we are (despite the disclaimers) to being taken up to heaven—or left behind.

Here’s the explanation, and the home page for the site, full of information about the Rapture, is here.

The Purpose For This Index

The Rapture Index has two functions: one is to factor together a number of related end time components into a cohesive indicator, and the other is to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting.

The Rapture Index is by no means meant to predict the rapture, however, the index is designed to measure the type of activity that could act as a precursor to the rapture.

You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we’re moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.

Rapture Index of 100 and Below:  Slow prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 100 to 130:     Moderate prophetic activity 
Rapture Index of 130 to 160:    Heavy prophetic activity 
Rapture Index above 160:        Fasten your seat belts 

Screen shot 2014-05-17 at 7.33.07 AM
Today's reading is below. The indices are hilarious, from False Christs [how do they get that number?] to "Gog [Russia]. And "civil rights" indicate an oncoming rapture?

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As you see, we’re at 187 today, which means “fasten your seat belts”!  Jesus will be here soon, and for sure this meeting I’m at will be Left Behind.

h/t: Merilee

Allen Orr slams Nicholas Wade’s new book

May 17, 2014 • 8:20 am

Allen Orr, my first Ph.D. student, has developed a thriving career as a popular book reviewer, and in this week’s New York Review of Books, he critique’s Nicholas Wade’s new book, A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race, and Human History.

I made a few comments on this book a few days ago, saying that it was in the main pretty bad, though one part, the presentation of the case for genetic differentiation of human populations, was not too bad. But Wade’s main thesis was that differences between human societies, as well as rapid changes within human societies, was due to evolutionary change mediated by natural selection. That  latter contention, I claimed, had no evidence behind it, though Wade argued otherwise.  I did not, and do not, recommend that you read the book.

I’m pleased to see that in Orr’s review, “Stretch genes,” he says pretty much exactly what I thought, though much more incisively. Here are some quotes from his piece:

A Troublesome Inheritance cleaves neatly into two parts. The first is a review of what recent studies of the genome reveal about our evolution, including the emergence of racial differences. The second part considers the part that genetic differences among races may play in behavior and in the social institutions embraced by various races. These two parts fare very differently.

…..So what has study of the human genome over the last decade revealed? Wade’s chief conclusion here is that human evolution has been “recent, copious and regional.” The facts are fairly straightforward. The continental races of human beings differ somewhat from one other at the level of DNA sequence. As Wade emphasizes, these differences are “slight and subtle” but they can nonetheless be detected by geneticists who now have access to many genome sequences from around the planet.

The central fact is that genetic differences among human beings who derive from different continents are statistical. Geneticists might find that a variant of a given gene is found in 79 percent of Europeans but in only, say, 58 percent of East Asians. Only rarely do all Europeans carry a genetic variant that does not appear in all East Asians. But across our vast genomes, these statistical differences add up, and geneticists have little difficulty concluding that one person’s genome looks European and another person’s looks East Asian. To put the conclusion more technically, the genomes of various human beings fall into several reasonably well-defined clusters when analyzed statistically, and these clusters generally correspond to continent of origin. In this statistical sense, races are real.

This is what I also claimed, and of course got slammed by the race-denialists who are motivated largely by politics.  To a biologist, races are simply genetically differentiated populations, and human populations are genetically differentiated.  Although it’s a subjective exercise to say how many races there are, human genetic differentiation seems to cluster largely by continent, as you’d expect if that differentiation evolved in allopatry (geographic isolation). As Orr notes:

As people dispersed about the planet, they ultimately settled into the five great “continental races”: Africans (sub-Sahara), East Asians, Caucasians (Europe, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East), Australians, and Native Americans. Some of these groups are younger than others (America was peopled only in the last 15,000 years), but this division provides, Wade says, a reasonably realistic portrait of how human genetic diversity is partitioned geographically. Because of their geographic isolation from one another, these groups of human beings necessarily evolved mostly independently over the last tens of thousands of years. During this period of independent evolution, much of what we think of as characteristically human arose, including agriculture and settlement in permanent villages.

Finally, Orr takes the book to task for its big claims about the genetic underpinnings of human social differences, which are unsubstantiated:

These are big claims and you’d surely expect Wade to provide some pretty impressive, if recondite, evidence for them from the new science of genomics. And here’s where things get odd. Hard evidence for Wade’s thesis is nearly nonexistent. Odder still, Wade concedes as much at the start of A Troublesome Inheritance:

“Readers should be fully aware that in chapters 6 through 10 they are leaving the world of hard science and entering into a much more speculative arena at the interface of history, economics and human evolution.”

It perhaps would have been best if this sentence had been reprinted at the top of each page in chapters 6 through 10.

One of the most frustrating features of A Troublesome Inheritance is that Wade wants to have it both ways. At one moment, he will concede that he writes in a “speculative arena” and, at the next, he will issue pseudofactual pronouncements (“social behavior, of Chinese and others, is genetically shaped”). This strategy lets Wade move in a kind of intellectual no-man’s-land where he gets to look like he’s doing science (so many facts about genomes!) while covering himself with caveats that, well, it’s all speculative.

Which might lead you to wonder: If Wade has little or no hard evidence for his evolutionary thesis, how does he hope to convince his readers to take it seriously? Part of the answer is by offering captivating narratives about how recent human evolution could have played out, as we saw earlier with the transition to permanent settlement.

This is the problem with Wade’s book: it presents a sweeping hypothesis about the selective basis of human social differences ( a touchy subject), but gives virtually no evidence to support it. If you like stories, it’s fine; if you like science, it’s not so fine. Wade sometimes offers disclaimers, but the reader’s impression will be that he really is presenting scientific findings. It’s an bad piece of scientific journalism, and the next-to-last paragraph above sums up the problem neatly.

By all means read Orr’s review at the link above (it’s free), but I can’t say I’d urge readers to buy the book. It might read okay to those who don’t know a lot about evolution, but to an evolutionary biologist, or a sociologist who knows about genetics as well as the cultural malleability of societies, it is a frustrating and ultimately irresponsible book.

 

Meeting report: Imagine No Religion

May 17, 2014 • 7:28 am

I’ll be busy at the Imagine No Religion 4 meeting today (this conference is srs bsns, though there’s lot of opportunity for socializing). The attendees at this meeting are older than those at the usual atheist meeting: the demographic reminds me of the Freedom from Religion Foundation annual meeting. Although one would like to see more young people, this also means that the attendees expect meat instead of drama: serious and thought-provoking talks. I like that, for I favor meetings that are mostly devoted to interacting and learning rather than drinking, socializing, and dissing other atheists. We’ll try to give the audience some meat (or for you vegetarians, tofurkey).

This is the view from my room:

P1050850

We had a lovely dinner for the speakers last night, with good company and terrific noms. First the noms—a buffet:

One of the three dessert tables (remember, there are only about 15 speakers!):

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Seafood: shrimp, mussels, salmon, and so on:

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Moar desserts!

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Ribs!

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Remedy for ribs!

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Salads and stuff:

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The roast-beef carving station (make mine rare):

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Last night’s panel was on free will, in which moderator  Chris diCarlo, Ish Haji (a philosopher from Calgary), Lawrence Krauss (the “mystery guest”), and myself hashed out the issue for an hour (Chris and I are “hard determinists,” Ish a compatibilist, and Lawrence, well, it[‘s hard to tell. We had no libertarian free willers, as Chris, who organized the panel, couldn’t find one, despite a year of asking.

Our discussion was vigorous, by which I mean sometimes contentious. Ish made a number of statements about science that Krauss found offensive (e.g. “science has nothing to say about the concept of causation; it’s a philosophical concept”), and Krauss, believe me, showed his disdain.  At one point Ish claimed that common sense deludes us, pointing to the table and said we were under the misconception that the table was solid. At that point Krauss climbed on our table and began pounding it, demonstrating that it was solid.

The avid audience interest and participation in the Q&A were surprising to me, as discussions of free will can be tedious or arcane. I did get into it a bit with Krauss, who maintained that yes, all our actions are completely determined, and wouldn’t even grant the possibility of quantum indeterminacy affecting the course of our actions or of cosmological history, since he said that “quantum mechanics is a deterministic theory.”

That’s true, but quantum events may change the way life unfolds if you were to “replay the tape of life.” Or so I think. But that has nothing to do with whether we make “free” decisions.

Krauss also claimed, despite his pure determinism, that we still have a form of free will, simply because we act like we do, so it makes no difference at all whether we “could have chosen otherwise.” I took issue with that on two counts. First, if if determinism reigns and dualism doesn’t, then that viewpoint has enormous implications for how we treat people—and punish them. Second, I noted that the Libet experiment, Soon et al. experiment, and others like them show that there is a difference between thinking we have free will and knowing that things are determined: experiments from brain scans are beginning to show that some decisions can be predicted before people are conscious of having made them. Krauss’s response, I think, was lame: he said those experiments predict behaviors with imperfect accuracy (I think it’s 60-80%). But that imperfection is irrelevant, for it shows that there is a difference between our thinking we can do otherwise and studies showing that we aren’t as free to do otherwise as we think. It was an engaging discussion, and Krauss took several opportunities to tell Ish that he completely misunderstood science (Krauss pulls no punches), which of course offended the philosopher.

Some of the speakers from last night’s dinner are in the photos below:

Jerry DeWitt, apostate preacher (“Can I get a Darwin?”) and Wanda Morris (CEO of Dying with Dignity Canada):

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Carolyn Porco (astronomer) and Margaret Downey (secular activist):

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L to R: Ish, Bill Ligertwood the organizer, Genie Scott, Chris Dicarlo, and his wife (whose name I’ve forgotten; apologies):

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Seth Andrews (ex-Christian and podcaster: “The Thinking Atheist”) and Darrell Ray (author and outspoken secularist):

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I’ll have a lot more photos later, I hope.

You can see today’s schedule here, and it ends with a screening of “The Unbelievers” with the filmmakers Gus and Luke Howarda as well as Lawrence Krauss (one of the stars along with Richard Dawkins, who, sadly, isn’t here).

 

 

Caturday felid trifecta: Cat tries to pwn music, epid cat leaps, and cat missing in Japanese tsunami turns up after three years

May 17, 2014 • 6:33 am

Ceiling Cat has smiled on you: you get three awesome felid items today. The first is a cat video from Russia, which for some reason (I suspect the deep Russhian love for the “kot”) is producing some of the finest internet cat videos. This one has the Russian title below, which some reader should interpret. I know only the first word.  The cat, however, is trying to pwn the music coming out of the speak. Aside: for some reason many Russian cats appear to be gray with round heads.

Screen shot 2014-05-10 at 3.39.04 PM

***

Here is a series of epic cat leaps, many of which are FAILS:

***

Finally, from the Torygraph and the Asahi Shimbum, a heartening report of a cat in Japan who, after being lost for three years in the tsunami, was reunited with its owners.

From the Torygraph:

A cat that vanished three years ago during Japan’s 2011 tsunami disaster has been unexpectedly reunited with its owners.

The black cat, called Suika, was thought to have died after disappearing on March 11, 2011 – the day of the earthquake and tsunami – from his home in Ofunato, Iwate prefecture.

Kazuko and Takeo Yamagishi, his owners, spent three months searching for the cat across the city, which was badly hit by the tsunami, before abandoning any hope that he may have survived the disaster.

However, in a rare happy twist more than three years on, the cat was recently spotted in a neighbouring town and taken to the authorities before the owners were tracked down via its collar information, according to Japanese media.

Although the owners are still unsure as to where the cat has been for the past three years, their joy was evident as they were reunited at Ofunato Health Centre.

tsunami-cat_2908288b
Kazuko, left, and Takeo Yamagishi get to hold their pet cat, Suika in Ofunato, Japan Photo: The Asahi Shimbun

From the Shimbum

On April 10 this year, a couple spotted a black cat curled up in a cedar forest in Rikuzentakata, another disaster-hit municipality in the prefecture. They took in the cat, which wore a collar and was friendly, and reported the animal to the Ofunato Health Center.

Days went by with no one showing up to claim the cat. So the center decided to print the cat’s picture in a local newspaper.

When an employee was taking the cat’s photo on the morning of May 9, he noticed faded letters and numbers on the collar. He deciphered the name as “Yamagishi” and made out the numbers. They turned out to be the cellphone number of Takeo Yamagishi.

It is unclear how Suika survived the ordeal and how long he had stayed in Rikuzentakata, which is 15 kilometers from Ofunato.

But a bell on his collar indicated that someone had taken care of him.

Suika looked content with his eyes closed and back in the arms of Takeshi and Kazuko.

Screen shot 2014-05-17 at 6.25.39 AM
This cat looks pretty sanguine. (Photo: Wataru Sekita)

h/t: Chris, Barry, Tw**t from Rowan Hooper via Matthew Cobb

Saturday: Hili dialogue

May 17, 2014 • 5:20 am

The drama with Cyrus the D*g continues in Dobrzyn, with his staff sleeping in different rooms, one with a canid and the other with a felid.

Hili: Look what a nice dog is in this picture – he is not jumping around at all.
A: Hili, he needs more time…

10302047_10203379494755402_2102841318493870236_n

In Polish:
Hili: Patrz jaki miły pies na tym zdjęciu, wcale nie podskakuje.
Ja: Hili, on potrzebuje trochę czasu.

 

Man hugs adult lions (and hyenas)

May 16, 2014 • 2:02 pm

This guy has the best job in the world; let’s hope it lasts for a long time! It’s Kevin Richardson, whom we’ve met before as “The Lion Whisperer.”

From FACTS.FM:

A brave man named Kevin Richardson is a South African zoologist, who studies native animals to Africa. He has studied lions to such an extent that he seems to have uncovered the secret to not being mauled to death, as you will see. He has decades of hands-on experience studying how lions behave, and he was able to use that knowledge to his benefit in an amazing way.

Richardson and his crew got together their GoPro cameras and traveled to get as close as they possibly could to these African lions. After he calls them, they miraculously DON’T attack, but they go in for a hug! You have to admit that when you watch, you immediately think he’s doomed. Instead, you’re a witness to one of the most adorable hugging sessions ever. These 400-pound animals seem to act like nothing more than house cats around Richardson.

People will comment that the man is mad; that animals like this can’t be trusted, and so on. And maybe they’re right, at least about the latter. But Richardson has had immense experience with these animals, and, oh, what a thrill it must be to have a lion run at you and then hug you!

A couple of pictures. Indented text from the site above:

7B2opSx

Richardson is capturing the eyes of the world through his relationships with these lions, as well as hopefully attracting much-needed awareness to the issues that wildlife animals are facing in Africa. Wild animals numbers are dwindling as time goes on, and if these trends continue, animals such as these beautiful lions will eventually be on the endangered species list.

Richardson truly believes that this is a possibility within the next 20 years – not that these lions will be put on endangered species lists, but that they will be extinct.

DwuTa5W

h/t: Richard Dawkins Tw**er

Deepak beefs again about the skepticism on his Wikipedia page

May 16, 2014 • 12:24 pm

Over at HuffPo, Deepak Chopra is still kvetching about his Wikipedia page. The fact that PuffHo still lets the old quack continue complaining about his “misrepresentation” at great length shows that no matter how low you think PuffHo has fallen, there’s still a ways to the bottom.

In a piece published yesterday, “Wikipedia, a new perspective on an old problem“, Deepakity essentially argues what another website, Skeptical Science, characterizes as “Deepak Chopra complains about his Wikipedia page being factual” (note the final quote in the S.S. piece from Professor Ceiling Cat).

Chopra is a man who hasn’t grown up and come to terms with the internet, for, though he’s famous and rich, he demands that everything written about him conform to his wishes; and when it isn’t, he effectively throws tantrums. The fact that he repeatedly tries to respond to small-time critics like me shows that he is, psychologically, like Maru the cat, who plaintively admits, “When I see a box, I cannot help but enter.” When Chopra sees criticism, he can’t help but engage. And his own Wikipedia article (particularly the section called “Ideas and reception“), simply shows the craziness of many of his claims, and how people have responded. A sample; I’ve left in the original references so you can see that sources are cited.

Quantum healing

 

See also: Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health, Quantum mysticism and Ayurveda

Chopra has been called America’s most prominent spokesman for Ayurveda.[28] He has described his approach to healing using the metaphor “quantum healing”. This refers both to a discrete jump from one level of functioning to another – a quantum leap – and to the idea of thought as an irreducible building block.[30] Chopra has equated spontaneous remission in cancer to a jump to “a new level of consciousness that prohibits the existence of cancer”.[6][31]

Of the aging process, Chopra has written that it is, to some extent, learned behavior and reversible – accelerated by the accumulation of toxins in the body (including toxic emotions), and slowed down by physical exercise, good nutrition, meditation and love.[32]

Chopra has described the AIDS virus as emitting “a sound that lures the DNA to its destruction”. The condition can be treated, according to Chopra, with “Ayurveda’s primordial sound”.[5] Taking issue with this view, medical professor Lawrence Schneiderman has said that ethical issues are raised when alternative medicine is not based on empirical evidence and that, “to put it mildly, Dr. Chopra proposes a treatment and prevention program for AIDS that has no supporting empirical data”.[5]

Ptolemy Tompkins wrote in Time magazine in 2008 that “Chopra has steadily enlarged his reputation from that of healer to philosopher-at-large”, and for most of his career has been a “magnet for criticism”. According to Tompkins, the medical and scientific communities’ opinion of Chopra ranges from dismissive to “outright damning”, particularly because Chopra’s claims for the effectiveness of alternative medicine could lure sick people away from effective treatments. Tompkins concluded that “Chopra is as rich as he is today not because he has been dishonest with anyone, but because his basic message… is one that he wants to believe in just as sincerely as his readers do.” [33] According to Robert Carroll, Chopra “charges $25,000 per lecture performance, where he spouts a few platitudes and gives spiritual advice while warning against the ill effects of materialism”.[20]

Note that the article accurately represents what Chopra thinks, and then reiterates the criticisms of it. Wikipedia’s policy is not to present quackery unopposed, and it’s absolutely admirable that they allow these caveats.

But Chopra hates it, and wants his Wikpedia page to present his woo without opposition. Here are some excerpts from his new PuffHo piece:

Many of you may already know how vocal I have been in the past year regarding Wikipedia’s bias covering such topic matters as mind body studies, new science, and of course my friend Rupert Sheldrake’s biography page. Since Rupert and I began to speak out about the level of abuse and outright vitriol occurring on these articles, many more individuals and organizations have also stepped forward, highlighting a similar problem, including Nobel prize winning laureate Brian Josephson. Key facts or relevant events in our lives or research are being omitted, efforts to include them in the articles by neutral editors are being met with harassment, defamation and personal attacks. Skeptic activists on Wikipedia are on a campaign to discredit notable biographies that deal with any form of alternative viewpoints and because I am a highly public proponent, my own article has been made into a ‘ground zero’ for these same skeptics who have sought to discredit my name and work for over 15 years.

First of all, Chopra shouldn’t be associating himself with Rupert Sheldrake if he wants any credibility. Further, look at the excerpt on “quantum healing” above and tell me if you think there’s any “abuse and outright vitreol” in it. He also implies that Guerilla Skeptics on Wikipedia, a group designed to prevent unsubstantiated science from looking respectable, is tampering with his article; and they simply haven’t.

And then Chopra’s Big Kvetch: he has to actually deal with this skepticism, which takes valuable time away from his mission of pushing woo and selling his products and courses:

I have to deal with this bias and misinformation every time a journalist interviews me and references my Wikipedia article. I need to spend the first 30 minutes of interviews to correct all the misleading information from my Wikipedia article. It doesn’t matter how many reliable sources are submitted, nor how well supported certain facts about my life are — if it doesn’t not fit within the narrative of extreme skepticism of the band of editors controlling my Wikipedia page it is quickly removed. And the editors who complain of this censorship are harassed or banned.

But Deepak wants to control the narrative about him, and so he’s got a new group to bring “neutrality” (i.e., adulation of Chopra) onto his page:

Recently I have obtained a new perspective. A group of researchers and archivists approached me awhile back to explain how Wikipedia works and offered to mediate. They informed me that the problems that are occurring are not because of Wikipedia’s rules and policies, but despite them. Wikipedia’s purpose is to overcome these prejudices and misrepresentations, though the path there is tedious and long. They informed me that the best way to handle this issue was not by exposing the bias of Wikipedia editors (which they are already aware of) — but to be patient and continuing to contribute information faithfully and genuinely, seeking to represent knowledge and nothing more. And that in time the article will become a fairer and more accurate representation.

This team of researchers and historians has now formed the ‘Integrative Studies Historical Archive and Repository.’ The Chopra Foundation along with a few others are going to be helping them build and expand this database. Their concept is simple. Let’s protect and preserve this knowledge objectively through citations and sources. Let’s make this archive a donation to Wikipedia. Let’s make sure this knowledge is represented without bias to the spirit and letter of Wikipedia’s guidelines for all researchers and journalists. Let’s solve this problem by contributing, not quarreling.

They are now representing my work and biography on Wikipedia and it has been interesting to see the reception that the representative from the archive is getting on my article talk page.

Chopra then winds up with a faux plea for reasonableness:

Most of the skeptic editors on my article believe me to be a very dangerous man — and believe that it is Wikipedia’s responsibility to warn the world of how dangerous my ideas are. They are giving my representative a hard time and are harassing other Wikipedia editors who jump in and try to help. Although this is sad to see, I have hope that in time this can be resolved with integrity through this approach. I believe that by working together and encouraging cooperative behaviors on Wikipedia — that all of this bitterness online can grow a little more productive. Wikipedia, let’s work it out together. See you on the page!

Is anybody fooled by this? Chopra doesn’t want cooperation, and he doesn’t want objective evaluation of his “scientific” claims. He wants to be in charge of his public image.

Now I’m not sure if Chopra is a “very dangerous man”, but he is dangerous in some ways, insofar as his lucubrations and products prevent people from getting sound medical attention. And to me he’s dangerous to the integrity of the scientific enterprise, for he not only makes unsubstantiated claims, like saying we can change our genes by changing our behaviors, but also confuses people by making spouting obfuscating babble that sounds like science but isn’t.

So, Dr. Chopra (and I know you’re reading this), you’re not going to succeed in controlling your public image. Read about the Streisand Effect: the more you beef about the critics, the more critics you’ll get. For there are smart people out there who aren’t going to be taken in by your “quantum consciousness” psychobabble. And there are scientists like me who know that your claim about epigenetically modifying our genes via changing our thoughts and behaviors is bunk—pure, unadulterated hokum.  There are scientist/physicians like Orac who will continue to examine your claims from a medical perspective. And we’ll all continue to hold your feet to the fire so long as you pretend that your unsubstantiated woo is real science.

You aren’t going to win this one, Chopra. You will continue to gull many Americans and enrich yourself, but, if you continue on your present course—and you surely will—you will never gain respectability in the scientific community. It’s your choice: your money or good science.

Sudanese woman sentenced to death for “apostasy”: marrying a Christian

May 16, 2014 • 9:28 am

UPDATE: The Freedom From Religion Foundation has emailed a “call for action” on this issue, part of which I reproduce below. It gives a link to a petition and contact information for the Sudanese embassy:

TAKE ACTION

Sign this petition here.

Spread the word via social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter!

You can copy and paste the following message (or write your own) to the contacts listed below:

Please do everything in your power to halt the execution of Meriam Yehya Ibrahim and grant her clemency. She should not be hanged to death for the victimless crime of apostasy. Please immediately intervene to save this mother and prevent a grave miscarriage of justice.

The post of U.S. ambassador to Sudan is currently vacant. The embassy is headed by Chargé d’Affaires Joseph Stafford. The American, Canadian, British and Dutch embassies in Khartoum have issued a statement of “deep concern” over the sentence.

You can contact the Sudanese embassy online here. [JAC: the direct email link is here, send a message if you are so inclined]

MEDIA
Pregnant Christian Woman in Sudan Sentenced to Death for Apostasy

Sudan woman faces death for apostasy

_____________

Meriam Yehya isn’t dead yet, but, according to the BBC, she’s received a sentence of lashing and then hanging from a Sudanese court. Her crime: apostasy. You know by now what that means. She’s supposedly a Muslim who has left the faith, and for that sharia law prescribes death. (The penalty is also approved by a substantial fraction of the world’s Muslims). But, at least according to the article, her crime was not as simple as abandoning Islam. She isn’t really a Muslim. And she married a Christian man, which is illegal in Sudan.

Amnesty International said the woman, Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag, was raised as an Orthodox Christian, her mother’s religion, because her father, a Muslim, was reportedly absent during her childhood. In court, the judge addressed her by her Muslim name, Adraf Al-Hadi Mohammed Abdullah.

But that didn’t even matter:

She was convicted of adultery on the grounds that her marriage to a Christian man from South Sudan was void under Sudan’s version of Islamic law, which says Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslims.

(She was given three days to “recant” but refused.) Nor did it matter that she was married, for marrying a Christian is “adultery.” Here’s the unhappy couple: _74885885_74885447 Oh, and did I mention that she is eight months pregnant? On this end the Muslim judge showed infinite mercy:

The judge also sentenced the woman to 100 lashes after convicting her of adultery – because her marriage to a Christian man was not valid under Islamic law. This will reportedly be carried out when she has recovered from giving birth.

Praise Allah that they won’t lash a pregnant woman! That’s truly a religion of peace.

And there’s even more mercy:

Local media report the [hanging] sentence on the woman, who is pregnant, would not be carried out for two years after she had given birth.

The Independent in Ireland adds that she is a physician, and that her 20-month old son is in jail with her. The article has the absolutely accurate headline: Screen shot 2014-05-16 at 8.23.22 AM Amnesty International has objected, while there were a few supporters of the sentence (and some supporters of Dr. Yehya) outside the courtroom. The Independent notes other countries’ objections:

In a joint statement, the embassies of the US, UK, the Netherlands and Canada expressed “deep concern”.

“We call upon the government of Sudan to respect the right to freedom of religion, including one’s right to change one’s faith or beliefs,” it said.

Okay, so where are the objections from other Western countries, and, especially, from Islamic-majority countries? Don’t expect them. Where are the “moderate” Muslims crying out en masse against this kind of barbarism? Don’t expect it.  The Islamic moderates, by and large, simply keep silent when something like this happens. Would Catholics keep silent if a woman were sentenced to be burned at the stake for leaving Catholicism?

This is precisely the kind of idiotic, medieval mentality that Ayaan Hirsi Ali spent her career decrying—especially the complete disenfranchising of women in many Islamic countries. I’m now reading her book Infidel, and if you haven’t read it, I recommend doing so, especially if you think Brandeis had any good reason to withdraw her honorary degree. (BTW, do read Timothy Egan’s great criticism of the “commencement police” —which doesn’t mention Hirsi Ali—in yesterday’s New York Times.) Infidel is a terrific and eye-opening read, and makes it shockingly clear how women are treated as property, not as people, in places like Sudan, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia. I’ll add to that Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran.

This behavior is incompatible with Englightenment values, humanism, and simple human decency. I consider Brandeis, by rescinding Hirsi Ali’s honorary degree, as complicit in this behavior, tacitly punishing her “Islamophobia” instead of rightfully lauding her fight for women’s rights under Islam—a fight that has forever cost her a normal life. She will be under armed guard until she dies (no thanks to Reza Aslan, the Islamic “moderate”).

Women like Meriam Yehya will continue to be lashed, stoned, and hanged until Islam becomes genuinely moderate, something that I don’t see happening in the near future.

And how can we even countenance any society in which half its members—those with two X chromosomes—aren’t allowed to follow their aspirations? In many places they’re forbidden from even getting an education. What a waste of human potential!

h/t: Barry